USSA BOARD OF DIRECTORS’ MEETING MINUTES USSA Center of Excellence 2nd Floor, Borgen Swartz Education Resource Center 1 Victory Lane, Park City, UT Sunday, May 22, 2011, 7:30 a.m. – 10:30 a.m. USSA BOARD OF DIRECTORS’ ATTENDANCE Dexter Paine – Chairman FOUNDATION John Bucksbaum, absent John Cumming Andy Daly Jeanne Jackson, absent Kipp Nelson, teleconference Hank Tauber SPORT REPRESENTATIVES Alpine Representative: Bob Dart Snowboard Representative: Jon Casson Freestyle Representative: Glenn Eddy Cross Country Representative: Jon Engen Jumping/Nordic Combined Representative: Joe Holland ATHLETES Alpine Athlete: Scott Macartney Snowboard Athlete: Danny Kass Freestyle Athlete: Landon Gardner Cross Country Athlete: James Southam Jumping/Nordic Combined Athlete: Willy Graves CEO Bill Marolt AT-LARGE Greg Boester, teleconference EX-OFFICIO/NON VOTING USOC Athletes' Advisory Council Representative: Andrew Johnson NSAA President/Chair: Michael Berry, absent SIA President/Chair: David Ingemie, absent FIS Representative: Bill Marolt USOC Representative: Bill Marolt COUNSEL Alex Natt GUESTS Luke Bodensteiner Calum Clark Walt Evans Andrew Judelson Tom Kelly Mark Lampe 1. Chairman Convenes the USSA Board Meeting: Dexter Paine Dexter Paine opened the meeting and provided instructions to the board on how to use the microphones. 1 2. Chairman’s Introduction of Board Members: Dexter Paine Alex Natt took the roll call and confirmed the presence of a quorum. Paine then asked Natt to go through the first few motions. 3. USSA Agenda Approval: Dexter Paine Natt asked for a motion to approve the USSA Board of Directors' agenda as submitted. Motion # 1: To approve the USSA Board of Directors’ meeting agenda . M/S/C – Andy Daly/Bob Dart, approved by acclamation 4. USSA October 2010 Meeting Minutes’ Approval: Dexter Paine Natt asked for a motion to approve the October and December 2010 USSA teleconference meeting minutes. Motion # 2: To approve the USSA Board of Directors’ meeting minutes as presented. M/S/C – Scott Macartney/Andy Daly, approved by acclamation 5. Chairman’s Report: Dexter Paine Paine requested a moment of silence for Bud Little, a long-time FIS member who had been a huge supporter of USSA and skiing. He died last June. He said that he would make his chairman's report brief. The first thing he wanted to do was to introduce the new USSA board members. Landon Gardner, freestyle athlete, Montana native and competing on the team since 2004, he said he appreciated Landon's feedback to date and looked forward to working together. He introduced Danny Kass, new snowboarding athlete, a New Jersey native, although currently living in Portland, OR and New York City and two-time silver medalist in the halfpipe and a successful entrepreneur as well. He introduced Willy Graves, jumping/nordic combined athlete representative, son of Peter Graves and long- time skier, a Vermont native, and a retired member of the team attending Westminster College. He noted that it was great to have them on board and he reiterated that he looked forward to working together. He thanked staff for their great efforts over the year. He stated that FY 10/11 was a post- Olympic year and despite that, we had tremendous athletic successes across all the sports, which would be discussed later. We had the introduction of a number of new sports, he said. The IOC approved ski halfpipe for men and women and women's ski jumping for inclusion in the program for Sochi. Slopestyle and the team event in alpine would be discussed later on. These new events were sports in which the US did well and we were excited about them. The world championships were hosted here in Slopestyle. Paine commented that he had never been to a Slopestyle competition before and went to the event and reported that it was great viewing and exciting. He stated that there was an effort to broaden the sports to reflect what kids were doing on the hill today. He said that Mark Lampe would discuss the budget but suggested that, when you take five- six new sports and the same budget, it leads to tough decisions. He said that the organization was working diligently at taking advantage of our athletic success to generate more revenue. As always, in the budgeting process, there were lots of difficult decisions to 2 be made. However, he affirmed that we remained committed to funding development and elite teams to make sure that we were in good shape for Sochi. The final item to mention was that Bill Marolt, who'd been with the organization for 16 years and provided tremendous leadership during that time, announced his decision to retire in 2014. He said that we had begun thinking about that process to make it as seamless and thoughtful a transition as possible. We put together a transition committee to think about that process and report to the board. That Committee consisted of Chuck Ferries and Jim McCarthy, both former USSA chairmen, Paul Raether, long-time member of the Foundation board and Bill and himself. The focus would be on the following areas: transition at the CEO level, transition at the USOC, transition at the FIS, and making sure that Vail 2015 was the best World Championships that had ever been run. Those were the areas under consideration. 6. Jurisdiction of Adaptive Sport: Alex Natt As most of the board members knew, in December there had been a special meeting of the USSA BOD after the USOC had requested that the USSA return management of adaptive sport to the USOC. At that time, control of U.S. Adaptive was returned to the USOC; however, the USSA bylaws required that we only terminate jurisdiction of sports under our control at the annual meeting, which was today. He read the December 16 th motion approved by the board of directors into the record. “Resolved, that the USSA understands and agrees that the USOC has removed management and jurisdiction of adaptive sport from USSA. USSA consents and agrees to assist the USOC in this effort so as to maximize opportunities for adaptive athletes. M/S/C – Andy Daly/John Bucksbaum, approved by acclamation” As part of the clean up, the board needed to dissolve the U.S. Adaptive Sport Committee as well as remove the adaptive athlete and the sport seats from the board at this meeting. He requested the motion. Motion # 3: To dissolve the U.S. Adaptive Sport Committee and the U.S. Adaptive Sport and U.S. Adaptive Athlete positions on the USSA BOD as the USOC has jurisdiction over the adaptive skiing sports. M/S/C – Dexter Paine/John Cumming, approved by acclamation. 7. USSA Bylaw Amendments: Alex Natt Natt reported that there were bylaw amendments that needed to be confirmed at this meeting (Addendum A). The edits to the bylaws reflected the changes just discussed with adaptive where we removed reference to the Paralympic Games in the bylaws as qualifying competition for recognition under the USOC's ten-year rule. The final amendment eliminated term limits for the USSA chairman, just as the USOC has done, which allowed for consistency throughout the transition period in 2014 along with maintaining consistency in dealing with international relations. He asked if there were any questions or discussion. Seeing none, he asked for a motion to adopt the bylaw amendments. Motion # 4: To ratify the USSA Bylaw amendments as presented. M/S/C – Andy Daly/Hank Tauber, approved by acclamation. Paine asked for the CEO report from Bill Marolt. 3 8. Chief Executive Officer’s Report: Bill Marolt Marolt stated that he would be brief in his remarks and discuss the state of the USSA, the USOC, the FIS, and give a short briefing on Vail/Beaver Creek 2015. From an athletic standpoint, he stated that you never knew how a team would come out of a very successful Olympics. But as you looked back at this year, all of the elite athletes were winning podiums and globes or overalls. It was a fantastic year on the part of the athletes and he gave kudos to the entire athletic staff. On the development front, the success of your effort was often a question. We worked toward building depth but you were always unsure of the outcome; however, looking across the sport development programs, there were good quality young people in the pipeline. He said that the board would be hearing a lot about the Strategic Plan during the meeting. This was a plan delivered by Andy Daly this past year. A lot of time and effort were spent in putting it together and ultimately the plan was providing a good road map to organize through the next quad, plan for resource allocation and how to fund or not our sports as we moved toward Sochi. Paine mentioned the new sports in Sochi – halfpipe skiing and women's ski jumping, which should both be good opportunities for the USSA. These reflected a growing demographic in skiing and snowboarding. There was still a decision remaining to be made on Slopestyle. That could be decided at the next IOC meeting. We were relatively confident that it would be brought on as well. Through the whole process, Luke Bodensteiner and Jeremy Forster had been working together to put a U.S. Freeskiing program together, which had been built out, and the process for naming a team drafted. They would be in full operation as we moved toward the winter, he commented. There had been great work done with those athletes and he was very positive about the process and reported that the athletes were looking forward to being members of the U.S. Freeskiing Team. 2011-2012 focus did not have a World Championship or Olympics, so it would be a time to build a good physical base, a lot skiing and a lot of work in the training room would take place and at the same time we would be looking for new talent.